


See You Clearly

by IcyHeartGirl



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: All the kids deserve better, Friendship, Gen, Physical Disability, Toph Beifong & Zuko Friendship, and didn't get a disability, no way zuko got burned like that, you can rip their friendship from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcyHeartGirl/pseuds/IcyHeartGirl
Summary: Zuko can hardly see and hear out his left side. Toph can't see out of her eyes. People are blind to everything. They see for each other anyway.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 92





	See You Clearly

Toph knew that everyone was blind in their own ways. Toph couldn’t see with her eyes, no one could feel things like she could, and some people couldn’t hear. Toph imagine not being able to hear was a lot like not being able to see, only she had heard stories of people who were born without hearing or lost it in the war who went on with their lives developing their other senses. So she figured it was something like her and her feet but nothing like her and her feet because there was no one like her.

Of course then she meets Zuko. She doesn’t realize it right away because her feet are healing and she may be the best earthbender in the world but the pain of the burns on both her feet distract her just a bit. Eventually she figures out that he doesn’t like being handed things, doesn’t like people moving too quickly towards him, really doesn’t like when Hakoda joins their little gang and sits too close to Sokka or Katara, really really doesn’t like when Hakoda is near his kids while someone is joking with them. 

She tries to ask someone because for all that she is the best earthbender in the world she also knows that is a child that was raised in a house and was never allowed out unless she snuck out. There are a lot of things she misses, not because she cannot see them but simply because she doesn’t understand and damn if it doesn’t piss her off. So she asks cause yeah, she isn’t above that once in a while.  
“What’s wrong with Sparky?”

Sokka pauses in sharpening his sword and looks over at Zuko’s direction. “What about him?”

Toph can feel the rat-a-tat-tat-ta-tat of Zuko’s heartbeat with her newly healed feet and can imagine the heat he gives off when he starts to get nervous. [“It’s a firebender thing, we run hot, even more so when we’re emotional.”] Hakoda is a bum-----bum----bu-bum-----bum- of pride as Katara shows off her waterbending skills. It’s easy to place the swi-thack of the water whip and the swish of clothes mixing with the crunch of gravel as Katara flows from one move to the next.

Toph does not understand and the iiiiinhale exhale of Sokka shows that he is too, but for different reasons.   
“He gets all nervous around your dad and doesn’t like to be handed things?”

Sokka starrrres at Zuko as if he could see it all now when he could not before, when he is so blind, and shrugs. “He’s probably just adjusting to new people.” sching sching of the stone on the blade starts again and she can tell Sokka is done with the topic. She knows a done battle. She knows when to walk away.

Only now Sokka stares as well and it doesn’t help the rat-tata-tat-ta-tat-a- of a mess of a heartbeat and she has to punch Sokka into stopping. 

Until one day Suki, who trained for so long in stealth that her steps are a pm-pm-pm- of near silence, creeps up next to Zuko for dinner. Zuko is reaching for his bowl of food that he is learning to accept from peoples hands when he jumps to his feet, drops his bowl, hands up, ready to fight, heart tatatatatatatatata and everyone stares. 

“Sorry, didn’t hear you coming.” The strain in his voice is painful to hear and the temperature is too hot in the air and as he walks by his stride is unsteady and no one can tell her why. Until one day they are in a house that belongs to the firelord and Zuko is screaming from a nightmare and everyone is running and everyone is worried and everyone is a mass of tatatatatatatatatata-

“I can’t see.”  
No one breathes.   
“I mean I can see just not well.”  
We breathe again.  
“Also I can’t hear at all out of that side.”  
Katara is crying. Aang is crying. Sokka is quiet in his horror. Suki is silently moving to Zuko’s right side because she has seen some things in her time. Toph is… Toph is a little girl who grew up knowing that everyone was a little bit blind but not knowing that you could be blind in two ways and maybe she is a little bit naive still. The room is full of tatatatata and iiiinhale eeeeeexhale along with a pit pit pit of tears.

Toph is a kid raised in a family who sheltered her so while she may be able to see so many things she is blind to so many others but this she sees clearly and she attacks like she always does, ruthlessly.  
“Well even blind and deaf on one side you still kick Sokka’s butt so what does that say about him?” 

The area fills with Sokka defending his honor against Aang and Katara who quickly remind him of all the losses he had against Zuko. Suki valiantly tries to defend Sokka who immediately attempts a poem about his love and faithfulness. It is all background noise to the tatatatata which slows to tatata-tata-tat-ta-tata-ta-ta- and the pit pit pit and the iiiiinhale eeeexhale next to her. 

Toph reaches out a hand nice and slow and stops within his range, knows his range from the [hhp] gasp, and leaves her hand there. When he reaches out and grabs, she griiiips and hears her teeth creaaaaak but she also hears tat-tat-ta-ta-ta---ta---ta-----ta and iiiiiihale eeeexhale and thinks,   
_“Screw it, we can see for each other.”_


End file.
